Siena College’s pollster responded to the ridiculous “fictitious” charge by pointing out that they sort of know what the hell they’re doing, thanks. It’s interesting to point out the specific complaint that Collins has here – that Siena vastly overpredicted turnout in the City of Buffalo. Siena responded that it surveyed likely voters, has a way in which to vet that, and didn’t manipulate the data in any way because, you know, Siena doesn’t care who wins and has no skin in the game.

It doesn’t take much to read between the lines and point out that Collins is secure in his political dealmaking with the Mayor of the City of Buffalo to artificially depress city turnout to harm Poloncarz and help Collins. Mychajliw all but screamed, it’s inaccurate and worthless because it doesn’t factor in the active voter suppression that we’re going to be engaged in with the Mayor of Buffalo!

[Siena’s Steven] Greenberg argued the poll isn’t flawed and said this is a classic case of the campaign unhappy with the results simply trying to blame the pollster.

“The level of vitriol in their protest of this poll tend to show me that we are dead-on accurate,” Greenberg concluded.

Because the Collins campaign repreatedly referred to its internal polling as evidence the race isn’t that close, Greenberg called on Collins to release that polling. The campaign declined.

The reason this poll is so shocking to Collins isn’t that it confirms the Poloncarz-commissioned polls that were released earlier in the race, or that it supposedly is contradicted by Collins’ own internal polling. The real reason is that a poll showing the race this close just hasn’t happened in any County Executive race since before Joel Giambra’s election a decade ago. This is a real race, and Collins knows that this poll will help Poloncarz raise needed money – the only disadvantage the Democrat has had so far.

Poloncarz’ press release on the poll says this:

“These numbers confirm what I have been hearing on the campaign trail all along—voters have seen enough of Chris Collins running Erie County like a failed Wall Street business and want a change of leadership,” Poloncarz said. “Despite Collins’ spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a television ad blitz since late August in desperate attempt to remake his image, his record of higher taxes and job loss doesn’t work for Erie County families. Come November 8th, I am confident that voters will send a message and cast their vote for me.”

The Siena College survey was conducted October 4-5th, by telephone calls to 831 likely voters. A stringent likely voter screen was applied to the sample of registered voters that had been statistically adjusted to reflect party registration, gender and age. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points.

Founded in 1980, Siena Research Institute, is one of the nation’s most respected public opinion researchers. In the last six months alone, Siena has accurately predicted upset victories for Bob Turner (NY-9) and Kathy Hochul (NY-26) in both of New York’s Special Elections for U.S. House of Representatives.

Collins isn’t talking about the poll because he’s running the Corwin campaign – the same Corwin campaign that helped propel underdog Kathy Hochul to congress. The Collins-Corwin model mandates that the candidate only be trotted out for heavily stage-managed events, is kept away from the press, avoids debates whenever possible, and otherwise relies primarily on the spending of money on TV and radio ads. It works great when there’s no viable competition.

That Collins – well, his campaign people – are attacking the Siena poll is just silly and irresponsible. But that’s par for the course for a guy whose entire political tenure has been based on political maneuvering, petty Machiavellianism, raising taxes, harming our quality of life, and hiring his already-wealthy buddies for 6-figure jobs with the county.

And if you think that any of that is hyperbole, or that he’s run even a single thing over the last four-ish years as a successful business, ask yourself why his campaign hasn’t been Six Sigma-ing you to death. The reason is that Six Sigma has been an utter failure at saving the county money, and has cost more to implement than the savings derived.

The poll just confirms that people (a) don’t like the taste of the snake oil; and (b) don’t much like the nasty salesman. Collins’ campaign is also horrible at messaging and communications – the poll itself was a blockbuster, but the story about it now has legs because of the Collins campaign’s angry response.

Finally, Collins’ campaign claims that its internal polls show him up more, factoring in the voter suppression they’ll engage in. That’s nice, but it’s also illegal to make that claim and then fail to release the entire internal poll.

§ 6201.2 Use of public opinion polls -No candidate, political party or committee shall attempt to promote the success or defeat of a candidate by, directly or indirectly, disclosing or causing to be disclosed, the results of a poll relating to a candidate for such office or position, unless within 48 hours after such disclosure, they provide the following information concerning the poll to the board or officer with whom statements or copies of statements of campaign receipts and expenditures are required to be filed by the candidate to whom such poll relates:
(a) The name of the person, party or organization that contracted for or who commissioned the poll and/or paid for it.
(b) The name and address of the organization that conducted the poll.
(c) The numerical size of the total poll sample, the geographic area covered by the poll and any special characteristics of the population included in the poll sample.
(d) The exact wording of the questions asked in the poll and the sequence of such questions.
(e) The method of polling-whether by personal interview, telephone, mail or other.
(f) The time period during which the poll was conducted.
(g) The number of persons in the poll sample; the number contacted who responded to each specific question; the number of persons contacted who did not so respond.
(h) The results of the poll.

“We haven’t directly shared numbers outside of our campaign. I have only responded to your fictitious poll that we are comfortable that our internal polling that shows us ahead. Our counsel assures us that we are in compliance with NYS Election Law 6201.2.”

The Siena poll isn’t fictitious. It actually exists. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

9 Responses to “Collins to Siena: Inconceivable!”

there will be comments because now just like corwin’s worker attacking jack davis, Mychajliw (ma hi lu) the attack dog is the worst image just as he was in finding waste in government for the station he was released from, and then passed through the Board of Education in Buffalo as their worst media hire and now is a campaign guy since Chris Grant (who forgets to come to work at the Rath building) led the path away from Corwin. .It was the Year of Hochul and now it looks like the underdog sincere talented steel town man may make it a Year of Poloncarz. Collins annoys everyone he meets because he wants no new information and so he inflicts his views and there may have been better ideas. The Six Sigma fraud produced no budget savings. The budgets have numbers and then a fantasy page of savings not included in the numbers. Nothing has changed except for evey department there is a cut of 10-20 people, but never eliminated entirely because it was not needed. The result is poor service and still tries to collect federal dollars for poor performance of mandates that are what counties handle.

Mychailwhatever has zero credibility or integrity. This clown, who was leading the ‘ol “redcoat” charge in the Giambra era has now become the smug, condescending mouthpiece for King Collins. He ranks right up there with Joe “the felon” Illoser….

Although I’m not a lawyer, I’m aware of the law on the use of polls, and I’ve never seen a campaign go so far in its statements then not disclose. So who has standing to bring actions under 6201.2–? An action, in my view, should be brought. It will keep this issue in front of the public — and even if not resolved until after the election, any information disclosed would provide valuable insights into the Republicans’ Machiavellian urban voter suppression machinations.

BTW, is Stef becoming the Horshack of this campaign–? His girly shrieking that Siena didn’t take into account their multi-year master strategy to suppress urban voter turnout, followed by a contorted denial that such a strategy exists, is priceless. He’s blowing this campaign for Collins this week, just like the frat-boys-gone-wild video stunt backfired on Corwin. Bob McCarthy has been somewhat friendly to the Collins camp, and the Buffalo News has in the past declined (inexplicably) to endorse Poloncarz. Seems like Stef wants to change that up. And it also seems he doesn’t want 2 on his side, either. Wow, that’s smart — look at what GRZ did re: Thompson and Corwin.

If the Dems were wringing their hands over city turnout, Stef just dropped a gift in their lap, by essentially confirming that the rich, dictatorial, pasty-faced white geezer who lives on a lake — and his sneering, frat-boy minions — is counting on city voters to stay home on Election Day.

OK, Stef reminds me of Saddam’s mouthpiece……The Iraqi information minister stands in front of the cameras, a grim smile on his face, a military beret on his head, and declares forcefully, “There are no American troops in Baghdad!” Meanwhile, black smoke rises in the distance behind him, weapons fire can be heard all around, and American tanks rumble down streets only yards away…….

Is it only me? The media keeps reporting that Collins has $1.2 million and Poloncarz has raised $225,000. If Collins loaned himself $800,000 and got the rest from his appointees and millionaire friends that is saying something. 1st Collins only raised 2 x’s as much as Poloncarz and a very select few of the wealthy want to control our county government with Collins at the helm. 2nd Poloncarz has about the same ratio of funding to run a campaign as Hochul did in defeating Corwin another well to do friend of Collins. Maybe the rich can’t always buy an election.

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